The 19
th century saw many innovative firearms designs,
from Sam Colt’s famous single-action revolver to Winchester’s
cowboy-favorite lever-action rifles, but one of the most important
firearms to make its debut in this era wasn’t from America, but from
Germany. You’ve probably seen this firearm referenced in a shooting
magazine or book—in fact it’s hard to pick up any literature on firearms
today and
not see this gun or its action mentioned. I’m talking about Peter Paul Mauser’s Model 98 bolt-action repeating rifle.
Noted for its extremely strong action, the Mauser 98 was the basis for military shoulder arms for the first decades of the 20
th
century. Utterly reliable and capable of taking on some of the largest
dangerous game available, Mauser’s bolt-action repeating rifle soon
became a favorite tool for sportsmen. While the lever-action rifle so
popular when the Mauser 98 was introduced could offer a slightly faster
rate of fire, the capability of firing cartridges with flatter
trajectories and greater accuracy gave the edge to Mauser’s bolt-action
design (especially when longer shots are concerned).
Most bolt-actions look similar from the outside, but there are many
differences in how they are designed and function internally. Mauser’s
design, for instance, doesn’t require the use of an internal hammer.
(Note: a gun’s “hammer” can be external, like on a revolver, a Colt 1911
semi-auto pistol, and many lever-action rifles, while the majority of
repeating shotguns and rifles have internal or “non-exposed” hammers.)
The Mauser 98’s “lock time”—the time between the end of the trigger pull
and the detonation of the cartridge, something measured in fractions of
a second and important to a gun’s accuracy (faster is better)—was much
faster than the lever guns so popular when the 98 was introduced. So
just how good was the Mauser 98? To give you just one example,
Winchester cloned the Mauser 98 when it released its now famous Model
70, and
that rifle would go on to earn the moniker “The Rifleman’s Rifle.”
